Paper-Thin Armor and a Human Sandbag
◈ A blade steeped in extreme cold, freezing everything except its wielder.
Crow's Frost Ice Sword was far more powerful than any of the other Yggdrasil items Iron Blood possessed. Parrying it was a gamble. Even if you knocked the blade aside, your own sword would flash-freeze in an instant. The blizzard swirling around the blade hampered an opponent's movements and drained the warmth from their body — and the longer the storm raged, the stronger the sword became.
[A rather troublesome weapon to deal with, wouldn't you say?]
Truer words were never spoken. Ryu Hwi put distance between them and tested the waters with a thrown knife. The raging blizzard swatted it out of the air like a fly.
"Maybe I should've scavenged a gun instead."
[Could you even hit him with one?]
Crow moved at high speed, riding the force of the blizzard pouring from his blade.
"The storm's going to make it rough. Can't get a clean line on him."
Ryu Hwi kept weaving out of Crow's attacks.
"Boss!"
"Take him down, quick!"
The grunts cheered Crow on. To any casual observer, it looked like a one-sided beating — Crow on the offensive, his opponent merely running. But Crow himself was rattled.
What the hell is with this guy's movement?
The Frost Ice Sword's blizzard was supposed to steal the freedom from a body's limbs. Yet the man dodged every attack without a care, as if it were a light spring breeze.
Is that really a human's movement? It's like something straight out of a game.
Every motion seemed to anticipate Crow's strikes before they came. It was Ryu7017's movement, exactly as Crow had watched it a hundred times on video.
"I see it now — you've got a Yggdrasil item of your own, don't you!"
Crow had reasoned that Ryu Hwi must be borrowing the power of an Yggdrasil item too.
[He's making assumptions on his own again.]
"Eh, let him. It's a convenient mistake to leave uncorrected."
Better that Crow believed in an Yggdrasil item than learned that UR YggON existed.
"Quite a impressive item you must have, then. How about we put it to the test — my Frost Ice Sword against your little toy, and see which one comes out on top?"
The Frost Ice Sword unleashed a blizzard stronger than anything it had produced so far. The howling wall of white swept over Ryu Hwi. Frigid wind coiled around his entire body, and the blinding snowstorm swallowed his field of vision.
And out of that whiteout came the killing blow. This time, Crow swung with full intent to end it.
"……?!"
The blade meant to cut Ryu Hwi down cleaved nothing but empty air. The man who had been right in front of him moments ago was suddenly far away.
Crow clicked his tongue.
"Plenty of cheap tricks, I'll give you that. But keep running all you like — it's pointless."
If he had a means of winning, he'd have used it already. Crow had calculated that Ryu Hwi had no finishing blow to deliver.
"No use playing it cool, either. I'll settle for one arm — grovel and beg for forgiveness right now, while I'm still feeling generous."
Ryu Hwi gave a careless shrug.
"Yeah. You're strong."
Even by Ryu Hwi's standards, Crow was strong.
"Well-trained, too. Even setting aside the sword's power, you'd hold your own."
[In skill terms, I'd peg him at about Sword Mastery Lv1.]
"I suppose the name earns its keep."
Ryu Hwi appraised Crow's ability with cold detachment — not just the power of the Frost Ice Sword, but Crow himself.
"You son of a—!"
It was an assessment dripping with unmistakable condescension, someone looking down their nose at a lesser being. And that gaze stirred a memory. Someone else who had looked at him exactly that way. Someone who had stomped his entire life into the dirt.
"Don't you DARE look down on me! Do I look like a joke to you?!"
"Yes."
He'd asked, so Ryu Hwi answered honestly.
"Iron Blood's just leeches sucking other people's blood out of the entertainment district's back alleys, isn't it? Frankly, you're scum beneath even an Unknown."
Ryu Hwi dismissed everything Crow had ever built as lower than an Unknown's worth.
"Ha……."
Crow let out a light sigh, then scratched his head with an incredulous, hollow laugh.
"I'll kill you."
Crow's fury had crossed its limit. Until now he'd held back to contain the collateral damage — but enraged, he bared his full strength.
"B-Boss!"
"The whole underground facility—!"
The blizzard scoured every direction, and the entire underground floor began to freeze over. This place stored the Truecadia virus chips. One wrong move and Iron Blood's primary source of income would vanish in an instant.
But despite his men's desperate pleas, Crow kept drawing out every last drop of the Frost Ice Sword's power.
"With that technique of his, I can rule the entertainment district without any of this digital drug garbage! Who cares if my limbs fly off — as long as my head's intact, nothing matters!"
Crow intended to smash Ryu Hwi to pieces, then dig out the secret of that technique at his leisure.
[A 'technique,' you say — surely you mean ME, Master? 'Merely ruling the entertainment district'... Aren't you underestimating me just a tad?]
YggON took offense for reasons all his own. Ryu Hwi let the complaint wash over him and drew a deep breath.
His skin prickled. The blizzard converged onto the Frost Ice Sword, its power surging to the extreme. Crow, gripping the white-glowing blade, charged at Ryu Hwi in a single burst.
"DIE!!"
Inside the blizzard cold enough to freeze him solid, Ryu Hwi quietly watched the movement. The precise instant Crow swung his sword.
SR+ — Sword Saint Lv4 (Parrying)
Ryu Hwi's wooden sword flash-froze solid and shattered. Facing an Yggdrasil item like the Frost Ice Sword with an ordinary wooden blade could only end one way. But faced with that entirely predictable outcome, Crow's expression warped into sheer disbelief.
Ryu Hwi had stopped a full-power strike — every ounce of the Frost Ice Sword's strength behind it — by sacrificing nothing more than a wooden sword.
"You forgot the fundamentals of being a gamer."
"……?!"
"Big attacks leave big openings."
Crow's stance collapsed as his attack was knocked aside. Ryu Hwi didn't miss the gap — he took a single step forward. At his hip hung a folding knife in its sheath, one that had been holding a charge this entire time.
SR — Meteor Strike Lv1
SR — Iaidō / Battojutsu Lv1
"THIS is how you play a game."
A skill combo aimed dead at Crow's opening. The moment the folding knife left Ryu Hwi's sheath, the brilliant light of a falling star tore through the blizzard.
"GRAAAAH!!"
Unable to withstand the impact, Crow was launched skyward and slammed into the ceiling. The blow hit so hard the ceiling cracked where he struck.
BOOM.
The floor shook when Crow came down.
"Ugh, k-kuh... ugh."
When Crow tried to push himself up, using the Frost Ice Sword as a crutch, Ryu Hwi's face registered surprise. He'd meant to end it in one hit — yet the man had somehow gotten back up.
"Come to think of it, that last hit felt a little off. You've got something else under that suit, don't you?"
"S-so what if I do!"
Through the torn clothing, armor glinted. It looked like black iron plate hammered out thin as paper.
Black Iron Armor — Data confirmed. Ability: halves all incoming physical damage.
It was in the data Wolya had sent over, too.
"Paper-thin, sure — but the defense is superb. No matter how you swing at me, your attacks won't land properly! Too bad for you!"
"Haah... what an idiot."
Ryu Hwi sighed as he watched Crow puff out his chest over his own armor.
"Would've been easier if you'd just gone down in one hit."
[Tell me about it.]
Even knowing his attacks weren't landing, Ryu Hwi radiated more composure than ever. That reaction unsettled Crow.
"D-did you not hear me say your attacks aren't landing?!"
"I heard, I heard. That's why I'm offering to personally turn you into a human punching bag. Do me a favor and help me blow off some steam, will you?"
"You bastard—! What—?!"
Ryu Hwi vanished. Crow swung the Frost Ice Sword in a panic, but his reaction was too slow. In the next instant, the pommel of Ryu Hwi's knife cracked up under his jaw. The shock shot straight to his brain, and Crow's vision flared white.
"Don't think a scrap of armor like that can stop me."
What followed was a truly miserable spectacle. Just as promised, Crow became a sandbag. No matter how desperately he swung the Frost Ice Sword, he couldn't so much as graze Ryu Hwi. Meanwhile, Ryu Hwi's strikes landed with surgical precision across Crow's entire body.
Excruciating pain without end. If not for the armor, he would have passed out long ago. Crow found himself regretting ever wearing the Black Iron Armor.
A mon...ster...
Crow regretted it. He had touched something that should never have been touched.
"It's over."
At last, Ryu Hwi's skills roared back to life. An impact the armor could no longer offset swept through Crow. He lost his grip on the Frost Ice Sword at last, and with it, his consciousness slipped away entirely.
Ryu Hwi kicked the fallen Frost Ice Sword far out of reach and turned to the remaining gangsters.
"S-stay back!"
The moment they met Ryu Hwi's eyes, they stumbled backward in fear. He ignored whatever they shouted and kept walking.
"I said don't come any closer!"
One of the men holding Wolya's cube robot pulled a gun from his jacket. He aimed it at the cube robot and used it as a shield-hostage against Ryu Hwi.
"One more step and I shoot!"
Only then did Ryu Hwi stop. He clicked his tongue and eyed the cube robot.
"Honestly, this is a sorry sight. If that cube robot gets destroyed, do you actually die? No backup anywhere?"
[Afraid not. She's not an AI — that head is the one and only.]
Wolya's cube robot murmured weakly.
"Am I supposed to clean up the rest of this mess too? If you keep tripping me up at every turn, I might have to reconsider this whole deal of ours."
[My life is hanging by a thread and you're REALLY going to be like this? Well... I'd rather not be a burden any further than this anyway.]
The cube robot's lens gleamed.
[A crisis of this level I shall handle myself.]
In that instant, the gangster holding the cube robot suddenly dropped his gun. He shuddered violently, convulsing as if seized by a fit.
"E-hee, heehee, kyehehehe, kyahya. Heeheeheehee!"
He released even his hostage, laughing hideously out of his mind. Watching their comrade thrash and rave, the others froze in confusion.
And of course, Ryu Hwi was not the man to let that opening pass. He dropped them all in a blink and looked down at the cube robot.
"What exactly did you just do?"
[I also secured the digital drug data they were carrying. Then I amplified it a bit and poured it straight into their heads.]
"That's terrifying."
Ryu Hwi picked up the cube robot.
[Terrifying, he says. From the man who single-handedly obliterated Iron Blood?]
And indeed, Ryu Hwi had demolished Iron Blood alone. Even with Wolya feeding him intel, that was not something an ordinary human could have managed. Wolya asked nothing about it.
"So what's the plan now?"
[A plan? Simple.]
Wolya answered Ryu Hwi's question without ceremony.
[As of today, one organization called Iron Blood simply ceases to exist in the entertainment district. That's all.]
By the time the police arrived in response to the reports, Iron Blood's headquarters had already been reduced to wreckage. Every member of the organization was found in a state of digital drug addiction, and in the building's basement, the taboo item — the Truecadia virus chip — was discovered.
The police concluded that a mishandling of the virus chips had gotten the entire gang addicted. The addiction was so severe that even the standard treatments could barely touch it, and full recovery was expected to take a very long time.
"Mass addiction from playing with a taboo item... Even if they get cured, every one of them is headed straight for Unknown status."
"Shame. That was a decent revenue stream."
"Shh! Watch your mouth!"
Some of the officers actually mourned the loss of one of the crime syndicates threatening the entertainment district's public order. To them, the money flowing into their pockets mattered more than the safety of the streets.
"Crow had some real talent, too..."
They watched as Crow was hauled away.
"Hehehe, now I can finally succeed. Just you watch, Gabriel. Hehe..."
Draped in a decrepit cloth scrawled with the word SUPREME, Crow like a cape, he kept shouting.
"I am the Supreme One! ME!"
Watching Crow raving nonsense as he was dragged off, the officers clucked their tongues.
"Well, that's that, then."
"They were finished anyway. The Administrative Bureau's Special Affairs Division issued an investigation order — something must have tipped them off."
"Fair point. Thank goodness, really. They imploded on their own, so we didn't have to lift a finger."
Even the most corrupt police had to move when the higher-ups gave a direct order. If anything, they welcomed Iron Blood's self-destruction. It reeked of corruption all the way down — and now the stench had finally died with it.
From the rooftop of a building a short distance away, the cube robot perched on his head, Ryu Hwi watched the scene unfold below. With Iron Blood gone, the eyes that had been watching him would disappear as well.
And yet his expression was anything but bright.
[Still turning over what Crow said?]
When the cube robot asked, Ryu Hwi nodded. Before the disc drugs took his mind, Crow had cackled like a madman and left him with these words:
"You should count yourself lucky it was my hand that got you."
It might have been nothing more than the desperate scream of a cornered man. And yet Crow's final words had lodged strangely deep in his memory.
"S.E.N is watching you."
S.E.N.
Ryu Hwi still didn't know what it meant.